Highway 61 Revisited

As a teenager near Duluth, Minnesota, a young Robert Zimmerman used to daydream about riding down Highway 61 to the legendary musical locales of America. The road (since altered by interstates) began in the remote city of Thunder Bay, Ontario, hugging the shores of Lake Superior in Northern Minnesota before reaching Duluth and continuing on to the Twin Cities, where the future Bob Dylan attended college. From there Highway 61 paralleled the Mississippi River, through the blues city of St. Louis, the Arkansas countryside which brought us Johnny Cash, the city of Memphis where early rock and roll began, and the Mississippi Delta which brought us countless legends through the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Finally the road terminates in New Orleans just outside the French Quarter where jazz and dixieland music fills the air to this day.

For his sixth studio album several years later, Bob Dylan revisited that idea of a highway leading from his meager, remote town in the great white north through the heart of American music itself. On August 30, 1965, 50 years ago today the classic album Highway 61 Revisited was released and Classic Rock Review has today published an extensive review of this album by J.D. Cook.